Growing up I thought all people who had summer pool passes were wealthy human beings. Now that I am an official grown up and have a pool pass I realize the error in my thinking! Wealthy I am not, though I have been very, very blessed and have the choice to be able to work on-call while Hubby brings home the bacon.
So I have a pool pass to our local pool. It’s old and not fancy, but it is clean and very close and the water is perfect. No chlorine problems that leave you smelly with green hair. The kids love it. Plus it is located by the schools so the kids can walk to various volleyball and basketball clinics from the pool or I can make the short drive without relocating everyone.
All four girls are great swimmers. We haven’t done swim lessons for two years now. This is the first year I haven’t brought a vest for Elle for when I thought she was getting tired. She hated it when I made her put it on, but she refused to get out of the deep end and would keep going off the board even though she was so worn out! This year, I have noticed she is exhausted when we get home and is sleeping very well, but she is holding her own while at the pool. A seven-year old fish.
We go to the pool a lot. I discovered a couple of years ago that the pool is a god-send for me. They swim, hang out with friends, get snacks at break time and then go back to swimming. I have two life guards to back me up on supervising (one made Enu write sentences last year for pushing someone into the pool. She was so mad and I was so impressed! I wasn’t doing the yelling and she realized that other adults won’t put up with any shenanigans either.) All of this means that I can read! Lots and lots of books get read in the summer at the pool.
While my prefered place to read would be in the shade of a tall, tall tree I am more than willing to read under an umbrella for short periods in the sun. Such sacrifice I know.
So what am I reading?
I just finished re-reading A Discovery of Witches in preparation for book number to coming out July 10th. So excited for the sequel! I want to see if Matthew gets all mid-evil and if a baby comes this book. I know, I know, it’s all about babies with me!
I also am reading Sara Gruen’s Riding Lessons, Flying Changes and Ape House. Gruen wrote Water For Elephants and I adored that book. Ape House was very good as well and though I am not a horse person, her horse ones were a good great. She knows the animal-human connection for sure!
Though I finished these before summer, they would be a great set of books for reading at the pool: If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Foreman. I found these books by participating in the BlogHer Book Club. Great reads! Good for older teens as well.
I loved I’ve Got Your Number by Sophia Kinsella! I’ve read some of her other books and found the characters to be a bit to shallow and immature, but she nailed it with this book and I really recommend it for a fun read.
I’ll keep reading and recommending books, because it’s summer! Yeah summer :) Now please do three things for me. 1) Support your local pool if you have one, they are a dying institution. 2) Read a book this summer! 3) Go to this post and leave a comment and BlogHer will dontate money so others can read books as well!
Charlie loves the pool too. Last week every day (except Mon when pool is closed) we were at the pool from 2-5pm. Charlie can’t swim very well so he stays in the 3’6″ end while I float in the pool. Swim lessons start next week. Although he will jump into the 4′ section if I’m there to “catch” him. Otherwise he jumps into the 3’6″ part by himself.
It is way to hot and humid to sit under the shade for anything more than 30 mins down here.
Our pool doesn’t open until 1pm and I don’t get off work until noon. Our pool is totally awesome! There are rarely more than 20 people there (adults & kids). The lifeguards are great. It is olympic size with a kiddie pool, deep end with diving board, and lanes. It’s sorta U shaped so the diving and shallow ends are not competing with the rest of the pool.